power, had it the wish (except for its own protection, under a
different statute), to restrain the export of contraband of war.

It would tend to clearness of thought if the term "contraband" were
never employed in discussions with reference to prohibition of the
supply of coal to a belligerent fleet at sea.

Your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, November 7 (1904).

GERMAN WAR MATERIAL FOR TURKEY

Sir,--The _Cologne Gazette_ rightly treats as incredible the rumour,
mentioned by your Sofia Correspondent, that a trainload of munitions of
war had been despatched by the German Government for the use of Turkey,
while admitting that such a consignment may very likely have been
forwarded from private German workshops.

It has long been settled international law that a neutral Government,
while, on the one hand, it is precluded from itself supplying munitions
to a belligerent, is, on the other hand, not bound to prevent private
individuals from so acting. The latter half of this rule has now
received written expression in Art. 7 of The Hague Convention No. v. of
1907, which deals with "Neutral Powers and Persons in War on Land."

The only fault to be found with the paragraph in the _Cologne Gazette_
quoted by your Berlin Correspondent, supposing it to be correctly
transcribed, would be that it seems to imply that the above-mentioned
Art. 7 legitimatises the supply of war material to belligerents by
"neutral States." It is, however, obvious from the rest of the paragraph
that the _Gazette_ is not really under that impression.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, December 24 (1911).

* * * * *

SECTION 3

_Neutrality Proclamations_

The criticisms directed against the Proclamation of 1904, in
the first two letters which follow, have produced some
improvement in Proclamations of later date. See the last two
letters of this section. See also Appendix A in F.E. Smith and
N.W. Sibley's _International Law in the Russo-Chinese War_
(1905), devoted to a consideration of those criticisms.

THE BRITISH PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY

Sir,--You were good enough to insert in your issue of November 9 some
observations which I had addressed to you upon the essential difference
between carriage of contraband, which takes place at the risk of the
neutral shipowner, and use of neutral territory as a base for
belligerent operations, an act whic